


Cinders

by karahboou



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Personal Growth, Trust, Understanding, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 03:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17358341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karahboou/pseuds/karahboou
Summary: Slow burn Widojest. A characterization study of Caleb and Jester and their evolving relationship as they travel to and from Darktow. Caleb knows he is the last person on earth who could be loved by anyone-- and yet... a bright spark in the form of an exuberant blue Tiefling has come into his life. And he worries she is someone he cannot ignore.





	Cinders

**_Part of him wishes she knew._ **

 

She takes his hand as they sit on the deck of the Squalleater together. It is innocent, as the way she looks at the world so often is. He knows she has been looking for something to hold onto despite seeming playful and aloof as ever. The ocean rocks. It takes and roils and leaves just curls of lace trimmed water behind. She is pouting furiously and glaring up at the sky, as if she could force it to dip below the surface of the pitch colored waves and swallow everything whole. Destruction in her defiance.

The sea air is clean. For the first time in his life simple truths rule his every day. He can wake up, he can feel the wind on his face as he reads, and he can watch the sky change without wondering what is immediately coming next. He would never admit to it but life on the ocean is almost rescuing reprieve.

Just as Jester has surprisingly been to him time and time again. She is a smile in the morning as the first dregs of sunlight squeeze themselves from the thick blanket of clouds. She is a sparkle of dew on the wood of the cart as they watch the first snow fall in the northern reaches of the Empire. She is unexpected in every moment. She makes him laugh.

But these past few weeks the sea has not been kind to her. He looks at a healing scratch just above her collarbone, deep and crimson lines drawn by snakes teeth just days before in the serpent temple. Bleeding for something that she has never asked for but would gladly die for if it meant she could help in some way. Injury and insult. And not a word of thanks from Fjord.

He knows she is above deck to pretend she does not know what is happening in the captains quarters. The deep blue curls that touch the tips of her ears are the same color as her irises when she is angry. They shadow and harden and become a dusky purple that nearly crystallizes to obsidian.

He had seen her sitting on the deck with a blank stare in the early hours of morning, sky still black with pinprick stars drawing pictures in the sky. When he sits beside her, he notices she has etched dozens of angry looking snakes into the wood, some with toothy grins and others coiled around themselves with their eyes just peeking above the muscular folds. He feels there is nothing he can say—so he just sits beside her and looks up. It doesn’t take long for her to grab his hand.

So they sit until she turns to him and asks quietly, “Caleb, do you think they’ll get married and become pirate king queen together and he’ll forget all about me?”

He chews the inside of his lip but can’t find it in him to laugh at her immediate leap to the most extreme conclusion. He knows she means she is scared she has been the one left behind.

“Did your mother go and marry every suitor with whom she had relations?”

Her expression softens, “Well no—“

“Then nein.” he shrugs, “Fjord is smart, ja? He would not do such things.”

“Such stupid things.” she nods resolutely as she agrees.

“It’s only for information.” he offers.

“I know”, her eyes cloud a little bit and she looks down, “Thanks for saying that.”

He feels his stomach tighten and squeezes her hand ever so slightly. Just to reassure. She looks over at him and he fights the instinct to pull his hand back. But her smile in return is radiant and she squeezes back so hard he feels his elbow buckle a little bit because of the sudden pressure that almost becomes pain.

He lets the corners of his lips tug upwards to mirror hers.

She scrunches her nose up at him.

“What?” he says.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile at me before.” she sticks her tongue out, “It’s kind of weird.”

He raises his eyebrows, “Oh? Sorry, I’ll try not to.”

“No, No, No.” she cuts him off, “It’s good. You should do that more— you are always grumpy, though.”

She sidles up closer and leans her temple against his shoulder, letting his hand go and pulling her knees to her chest. Her horn is slightly uncomfortable as the point digs into his arm. He notices the frigid sea air as the wind whips her hair against his chest and he shrugs off his coat and drapes it over her shoulders.

“Better?” he asks.

“I don’t get cold, remember?” she nestles in closer as he tries to take it back, pulling it around her shoulders to secure it in place, “It’s okay though, it blocks the wind. And smells more salty than stinky right now.”

He rolls his eyes and points his finger up to the sky, “Do you see that set of stars?”

She follows his indication and her eyes widen, “That one is part of a unicorn.”

He has to bite back a laugh, “I was going to tell you what constellation it was, but I like your idea better.”

“I used to do this on the roof of my house with my Mama.” she said, “She let me make them up too.”

“That one kind of looks like a dick huh?” he points to her left.

She giggles and grabs his wrist and moves it slightly down, “And those are the balls.”

He shakes his head with mock disapproval, “Did you point out things like that to your mutter?”

“She’s the one that came up with it.” Jester replies with a wink.

“Mm.” he nods seriously, “Rightly so.”

Jester beams again and pulls out her paintbrush from her bag and begins to connect the stars with imaginary lines drawn through the air, taking care to poke his cheek with the back of it when she thinks he has stopped listening.

And to some extent he has. Her words drift airily around him as he studies the dusting of freckles across her cheeks and picks out constellations there instead. He loses track when she turns away and has to start over. The stars are out. They frame her in silver light through the lightening sky as they disappear just so. Just so.

She might be the clearest he has seen in a long time through the smoke and cinders.

 

* * *

 

**_He could be falling for her._ **

 

He counts to four as Vera’s eyes lock onto Jester’s haversack. The words of accusation are just barely perched on the old woman’s lips. He sucks in a breath. Searing worry in the pit of his stomach.

_Protect her._

He doesn’t even think twice as he exhales and murmurs four ancient sounds. Opens up his palm and draws a line.

The fire is as brilliant as it is sure in its destruction when the flame rips upward from the deck. It dances, curling around itself in ribbons of spiraling steps. He can feel the heat searing on his face and he has to shield his eyes with his hands. Avantika and Vera disappear behind the curtain of roaring orange and yellow. Bouldergut roars in surprise to his left. The twenty foot high walls take everything away.

He can see the shadow of his childhood home flash through his vision for a moment. He has to shake his head hard to force the thought out… failing to stem the icy dread that makes his limbs go numb. He immediately scans the deck for his friends— somewhere in the back of his mind a vision of them screaming and aflame buries itself there. But reality snaps back into focus with harsh colors as he notes that Fjord has sprung into action, Nott deftly shoves a crossbow bolt into place, Caduceus tears with long strides down the gangplank.

His eyes lock with Jester’s for a moment, terror etched to her expression. As she stares at him... for a fraction of a second he almost sees gratitude because his wall of fire has managed to keep her from being discovered with the book. Her arm flies out and grips Beau’s shoulder without breaking eye contact and then in a flash of pink she disappears. But just as a wash of relief overtakes him as well, he makes to turn away and finds himself face-to-face with the hideous leer of Bouldergut, flames crawling and licking up the coarse hair on her arms and igniting the matted tufts on her head.

She growls, foul smelling breath and bits of spittle flying into his face. She lifts her weapon above her head, arms as wide as tree trunks—and then there is only searing pain. The club smashes into his shoulder and he hears a sickening pop as a wordless howl rips out of his chest. The wall of fire fizzles out as his vision goes white. He can barely register what is happening beyond his dislocated shoulder when he sees a furious Fjord grab his forearm and yell “Hold on!”.

A pause in the sound and chaos as weightlessness overtakes the world and the ship disappears. He can only recognize the hard grip of Fjord on his shoulder as he is rocketed through blackness. His brain feels slow. But he thinks everyone is safe.

Please let them be safe and out of the way of the burning.

The light almost blinds him as he staggers forward where his feet reappear and slam into the dock. He hears Fjord yell _“Run!”._ Without pause he smacks his hand to his chest and feels the magic warm the contact as he immediately begins moving twice the natural speed. He can feel his legs pumping through the harried sprint as if of their own accord. The dock pulls up under his feet as if in a dream. And then, the wind is knocked from his lungs with a ripping pain in his left side as he looks down to realize a crossbow bolt is sticking out from his torso. He just begins to feel the sickening warmth of blood seeping through his coat as his consciousness fades and the ground rises to meet him.

He hopes Beau and Jester made it.

The first thing he feels is a firm hand on his cheek. The air sucks back into his lungs as he tastes the bitter tang of the healing potion hit the back of his throat. The yellow eyes of Fjord greet him in wild panic. He launches up into a sitting position as Fjord nearly falls backwards in suprise— and his stomach shoots into his throat as he sees Vera casting a spell at Nott who is sprinting across the wooden planks towards him. No. The fire is almost too easy to summon and it crackles to his fingertips as he points at the ship.

_Burn._

It isn’t just a jet of flame this time— the inferno that blossoms outwards from his hand roars into a blazing sphere that barrels towards the ship. He feels his breath snare in his chest as the explosion nearly sends him to his knees with the force. There is screaming. Bodies flying as they are blasted into the water and crumbling as they are melted into the deck. His heart almost stops. He can feel himself losing control and dissociating.

The scene flickers from blackened tulips in the garden to the thatched burning of the roof. The same roof he helped his Vater repair during the rainy season. The kind blue eyes of his mother as she sings him lullabies and reads him books.

_Mutter. Vater. Burn._

There will be only ash by his will. Gods be damned. Family be damned.

Sticky hatred. Death by his bloody palms. The world seems to dim to smudges of color and loathsome ringing in his ears. He barely registers that the fighting has stopped. He can hear his mother’s last word swallowed by the whirling air—

“ _Caleb!!!_ ”

He almost laughs because his mother’s desperate scream of his name seems almost real at this moment, not dragged from his past. Not echoing.

“Caleb!!!!”

Again?

“Caleb, look at me. Look at me.”

The voice is real. And someone is shaking him violently by the shoulders.

“Caleb, you did it— we are safe but we need to leave. Look at me.”

Jester? The form in front of him is human. Male. But it has Jester’s voice— shaking, gentle, almost sad. He feels a rough palm on the back of his neck and his forehead almost smash into the figure’s painfully as he is brought closer.

The man holding him smells like smoke and salt but as he locks gazes with the stranger he realizes that the irises are a crystalline amethyst. Comforting. Familiar. Her touch is warm and grounding and he feels a swell of magical energy surge through him and some of the pain subside with a healing spell.

“Jester?”

“Oh thank the _Traveler_. Caleb? It’s me. I’m just pretending to be someone else so I could avoid the guards. Come back. Please.”

She sounds… worried—

“The fire?”

“People are hurt but we’re okay. You kept us safe.” her thumb is comfortingly brushing back and forth on his cheeks now as she places her hands on both sides of his face.

“I burned—“

“You had to, though. They were going to hurt us pretty badly.”

He blinks hard and Jester comes into focus. Scraggly brown hair and a striped shirt that is almost hanging in tatters from the wiry frame.

“Are you crying?”

“No! Why would I do that?!” She pushes her hand embarrassedly up to her disguised sun-browned cheeks, silvery trails ignored until he had caught their glint in the afternoon light, “Look we have to go. Beau got the book to the Plank King and Fjord got him to let us go free but we have to leave right this second.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to mention it, you just looked different.” So serious, he thinks.

“Yeah I know I look pretty piratey right?” she wiggles her eyebrows and sniffs loudly, “Can you stand up?”

He places his hands on her wrists and grips hard, “I think so.”

She hauls him to his feet and he is lifted from the ground an inch from her strength before he regains his balance. He nods at her and she shrugs his arm over her shoulders as she supports some of his weight.

“Avantika?” he asks as they make their way to the gangplank. He follows Jester’s gaze as he sees a limp body on the ground by the Plank King’s feet, wild red hair pooling like blood across the dirt.

Jester shakes her head “I didn’t like her— but I don’t know if I wanted her dead.”

“I know.” he says, “Like I said, you are not a murderer.”

She smiles wanly as they slowly trudge up the gangplank and onto the deck. He notes the blackened wood that surrounds them, still ringed with crimson. The crew and the rest of the Mighty Nein are running around deck preparing the ship for departure. He resists her walking towards the entrance to the lower decks and instead leans heavily on the railing looking out over Darktow. She plods up beside him and drops her disguise, blue hair and horns appearing in stark contrast to the damage around them. Her elbows fall to the the wood, resting her chin on the heels of her hands. They are quiet as the snap of the mainsail unfurls and with Fjord’s command the ship begins to turn away from the port.

“Do you want me to fix your shoulder?” she asks.

He shakes his head. If it hurts, he won’t lose touch with the present. The pain is grounding. He looks down towards the shallow water, knowing she is watching him, “You helped save our lives by hiding and getting that evidence out of there.”

“You saved me from Avantika finding out I had the book.” she replies.

“We needed that book.” he murmurs, trying to excuse himself, finally turning to look at her.

She looks down and tries to hide her frown and he immediately feels bad.

“You pulled me back from the edge, Jester.” he says softly.

“Oh you know. You went all—“ she lets her jaw go slack and her eyes roll up in a dopey impression. But as she lets her expression return to normal, her brows knot, “I was just worried we wouldn’t get you back this time.”

“Ah. Don’t worry about that.”

She lightly punches his injured arm and he winces as she says, “You know, I could teach you ice magic instead so you don’t have to blow people up.”

He gives her a small smile, “That would be useful.”

“You just have to worship the Traveller.”

He snorts, “I’ll think about it.”

She begins to turn away when he reaches out and touches her arm. She stops and meets his eyes.

“ _Danke._ ” He says as earnestly as he possibly can. For bringing him back. For caring.

“Anytime, Caleb.” She smiles brightly and then heads below deck.

 

* * *

 

**_But she is too good._ **

 

“I kept your stuff dry.”

Her arms are outstretched. The dim flickering of the lantern casts long oily shadows on the panels of the hallway. Her eyes are locked on the small stack of books she is holding, and she refuses to meet his gaze.

He steps out from the doorway of his cabin, walking up to her. But he doesn’t reach out and take the books. His palm throbs from the open slash where he dragged the blade across it. It might as well be glowing between them.

“Thank you. I am even more useless without my spells.” He reaches out but she pulls back a bit, a hard frown forming as her lips tug down.

“I mean I didn’t mean it was a problem to hold them or anything.” she said, “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think they were messed up. And you’re not useless, okay?”

She finally looks at him and her eyes are guarded. The firelight plays delicately with the freckles across the bridge of her nose. Every word she says is earnest. She offers his spell books forward again and as his hands close around them she quickly places her palms over them.

“Did you want to activate the altar?” She ventures. He can’t detect malice. Disappointment maybe, but no accusation.

“Yes.” He replies. He can’t hide the shame that colors the word. He means it just as much as she somehow doesn’t seem to be blaming him or judging him. But she should. She is good.

“Did you think Fjord would have kept going?”, there is a glint of fear in her eyes.

He sighs and shakes his head, “I can’t speak for him but I know if I was less afraid of hurting myself more... I would have.”

She nods as if she understands, her bangs swishing from side to side. He wants to ask if she is scared of what he has done. But he bites the inside of his lip and holds back. He doesn’t know if he wants to find out that he has smothered one of the few bright sparks in his life in a long time.

“I’m glad you didn’t” she says, “The storm would have stranded us.”

“Ja.” he starts to pull away but feels her hold tighten.

“Why?” she insists.

“Because there was power there and I wanted to see if I could harness it.” He hated that he was telling the truth.

He studies her and finds the spark of fear he knew he would resent himself further for. But she surprises him by the change of this fear to the edge of determination in the set knot of her brow and the thinning of her lips as she steels something within herself.

“I could heal your hand, you know.” she loosens his grip and turns one hand over. The cut is poorly bandaged and weeping through the filthy cloth.

He shakes his head, “I did this to myself.”

“It’ll get infected.” she protests. Her fingers brush where the wound is and he immediately feels the throbbing dissolve into a pleasant warmth. He flinches back and she lets go of him entirely but her hands still hovering with the glow of the healing spell fading.

He clenches his palm into a fist, the half-mended skin still stinging with the movement and tucks the books under his arm. “I will be fine.”

He doesn’t give her a chance to respond as he turns around and reenters his room, cutting off the “Wait—“ that she calls out to his back.

 

* * *

 

 ** _And he turns everything he touches to ash_**.

 

He kneels solitary in the center of the room in some kind of sick vigil. The space is dark, a single candle pulsing light like a heartbeat. He is surrounded by the books that Nott helped him gather from Halas’ study. The words blur together on the page every so often, his thoughts wandering to that high ceilinged vault, the smell of ozone and static tingle of blue light cutting through the air. He remembers appearing on the deck of the ship, ready to apologize to everyone and seeing Jester and Nott not among them— Beau with a horrified fear frozen on her usually expressionless features.

His heart is racing though the space is quiet and rocking only with the soft sounds of the ocean. The magical dome that he cast shimmers faintly as he looks up, trying to study this wealth of new knowledge. He locked himself in here to be useful did he not? To find something to make up for everything he had just caused.

But all he can think about is Jester, appearing by his side hyperventilating and holding her shoulders as if she would break apart. Nott, bleeding and barely able to stand as she wraps her arms around his leg. All this blood to satiate some kind of sick curiosity of his.

He had handed Nott to Caduceus instead, asking that he make sure she was healed— no, almost threatening the firbolg as if the kind soul owed him anything.

Jester was shaking, forcibly insisting everything was alright and running below deck to her quarters. His fingertips had grazed the edge of her sleeve as he had tried to stop her, to ask her if she was fine. As if he didn’t already know she was beaten down within an inch of her life as well. The temptation to give her a hand to steady herself with, to let her lean against until her eyes stopped looking so frozen and dead. It felt like physical agony.

His fault. Hurting her. Breaking her. Breaking everything.

The ringing of his magical alarm nearly causes him to jump, his head snapping up from the floor of books. He whips around to yell for whoever it is to get out when he sees the short crop of blue hair. He slumps back on his his heels, facing her. Her cheeks look sunken, eyes rimmed with angry red and for the first time since he has known her, she seems exhausted and resigned.

He doesn’t know what to say when he opens his mouth, though his instinct is to apologize— no sound comes out.

Jester walks forward and puts her hand on the surface of the dome. She knocks with a half smile and says, “Can I come in, Caleb?”

He wants to reject her. He wants her to let him wallow without being here to physically remind him of how he has failed her. Crushed her spirit underfoot.

But he lets her in. Because he is selfish.

She walks over to him and kneels in front of him, face-to-face. She puts her hands on his cheeks, as she did so often to bring him out of his fire-induced stupors. Her touch is comfortingly cool on his temples as they always are. He realizes he has come to rely on this from the pure recognition of how it warms the pit of his stomach.

“I know why you are hiding. The dragon is not your fault.” she says, her voice thick. She pauses and he sees her blink hard to hold back tears, “I got some sleep and I am okay.”

The rage that wells within him is sudden. It sears up to his throat like bile and his hands almost go numb with how hard they clench into fists at his side. How can she not blame him? How can she not look at him and spit and revile and mock his recklessness? How she would never have gotten home though he had promised? Promised and tossed aside like it was a mere trifle. She almost died.

_She almost died alone._

“ _HOW?!_ How after all of this can you still be trying to make a piece of shite like **_ME_** feel better?!” he roars.

Her eyes go wide. Her hands go to her mouth as if she has accidentally sworn at him and she begins pulling at her cheeks in distress, “I don’t know! I— I don’t know!”

He knows he should stop but the anger is hot and hateful and bottled and simmered to torture himself. And now it boils at her without cause, “You can’t keep bending over backwards to pretend that you are not hurt! Y _ou can’t keep putting everyone over yourself so that you are nearly killed!”_

Tears are pouring down her cheeks freely now, streaks of silver across the dusting of freckles under her eyes, “I’m okay! I’m okay—I’m sorry, I’m okay! I have to— I’m okay.”

Her sobs are high pitched and child-like as she buries her face in her hands. He feels his heart shatter in his chest as he realizes he only continues to hurt her. Fierce self-hatred extinguishes his anger as quickly as it came and he only feels a devastating ache to protect her. To tell her that she is brave and not broken down by people like him who would try.

He reaches forward, ever so slowly, waiting for her to reject him. But she doesn’t. Gingerly, he wraps his arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest. He can feel her hands ball up and her fists shaking as they are squashed against him.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” he syncopates her sobs and her chanting with his own words as he rocks them back and forth. He can feel his own eyes brimming and stinging.

After what feels like an eternity, he pulls her back, gripping her shoulders and dipping his head until she finally meets his gaze, “Es tut mir leid— I’m sorry for… for leaving you in that room. You deserved better from me.”

She looks up at him, and pushes the heels of her palms across her cheeks, eyes big and filling again, “I’m okay.”

He pushes his forehead up to hers and places his palms gingerly to the sides of her face. She put her hands over his. They breathe together, slowly, until her tears stop.

“You’re okay.” he breathes.

He should let her go. He should tell her to turn around and never come back.

But instead he says, “Blueberry?”

It earns him the smallest smile, “Yeah?”

“Su bist niemals alleine.”

She pulls back but keeps her hands holding onto his as they fall to her lap, “I don’t know what that means, Caleb.”

“It’s a promise that what happened in that room will never happen again if I can help it.”

He means it this time. Sincerely. Unshakably.

 

**_Most of him wishes she will never find out._ **

**Author's Note:**

> Caleb tells Jester: "Su bist niemals alleine." which is German for "You are never alone."


End file.
